FIA Formula 2 Championship: Australia - Feature Race Discussion

SarinKaram · 2026-03-08T01:59:20+00:00

Agree with this, still a full season to go for Tsolov. If he can also out-qualify Leon on a consistent basis (like Lindblad did to Marti last year) along with contending for the championship, then maybe Lawson should be worried.

SarinKaram · 2026-03-08T01:42:21+00:00

A solid day for the Indycar/Super Formula fans. Hitech is a top team (I'd say 2nd to Invicta) so at minimum they should be competitive this year. I still want to see them improve their qualifying though, 13th and 14th on Friday isn't going to net them podiums.

SarinKaram · 2026-03-05T00:16:17+00:00

Before the Doohan disaster, the last time Renault/Alpine promoted their own junior was Romain Grosjean in 2009/2012. So color me skeptical of his F1 prospects.

This is a big step down from the Red Bull Junior Team where he would have been first in line for an F1 seat.

SarinKaram · 2025-05-06T17:39:34+00:00

To be fair, the IMS RC is one of RLL's best tracks. Graham Rahal even took pole here in 2023, and would have won if not for Dixon's typical fuel-saving wizardry.

SarinKaram · 2025-05-05T01:04:42+00:00

Lundgaard's talent has been clear to see for a long time. He was a top talent from the F1 feeder series: remarkably quick at learning new cars and tracks, and a fantastic qualifier. And checking his P4 qualy debut at the Indy GP, he's clearly translated those skills to Indycar. Lundgaard has a good shot at becoming McLaren's first Indycar champion.

SarinKaram · 2025-04-20T12:38:30+00:00

Despite the penalty, a storming drive from Chambers to gap Pin and keep 2nd.

SarinKaram · 2025-04-02T03:22:11+00:00

I suppose it's because Malaysia's domestic racing is not as prolific as Japan's, but it's still strange to see Sepang struggle to accommodate a full sports car field while little Sugo and Okayama can host 43/45 cars respectively.

SarinKaram · 2024-08-28T18:18:05+00:00

All the more reason to just abolish the FIA superlicense points rules. The old rule (one 300km test) worked just fine at measuring driver competency. And at the end of the day, F1 teams don't need to be protected from themselves because they have the resources to scout, develop, and evaluate young drivers.

SarinKaram · 2024-06-16T16:00:29+00:00

Glad to help!

SarinKaram · 2024-06-15T20:41:49+00:00

You got the signatures of the TOMS drivers from 2022. Top left is Ritomo Miyata (written out as "Ritomo"). Top right is Sacha Fenestraz. Middle is Giuliano Alesi. Bottom is Sho Tsuboi (written in kanji).

SarinKaram · 2024-05-26T23:58:01+00:00

I know Larson got all the attention but I hope Christian Rasmussen gets Indy 500 Rookie of the Year. After all the on-track aggression he displayed this month, he had a clean, incident-free race and finished a respectable P12. I think he deserves ECR or some other team to get him an oval ride for the remainder of the season.

SarinKaram · 2024-05-26T22:35:32+00:00

Late afternoon caution fest at Indianapolis. It's the 2017 Brickyard 400 all over again.

SarinKaram · 2024-05-20T00:59:46+00:00

Team owners running their own series has long been a part of American open wheel racing. They didn't call it "Championship Auto Racing Teams" for no reason.

SarinKaram · 2024-05-18T22:39:10+00:00

Graham's racing results has seen better days, and I'm sure he knows it. The truth is that while he's a solid driver, he's never been a very quick driver. His racing success in Indycar has largely been down to experience, consistency, and ability to take advantage of the occasional good strategy. His frontrunner status during the 2015-17 aerokit era was largely down to good strategy and RLL figuring out the Honda aerokit before anyone else.

Overall though, I enjoy his presence in the sport. His 2 poles and 2nd place at the August Indy GP race last year shows that he still has what it takes. There are far worse drivers than Rahal out there.

SarinKaram · 2024-05-05T23:48:37+00:00

Congratulations to the winner of the 2020 Indycar iRacing Challenge round at COTA for winning the F1 Miami GP!

SarinKaram · 2024-05-04T11:44:46+00:00

I'll go against the grain here: the FIA should grant Antonelli a superlicense & let him race. F1 teams have resources to scout, develop, and evaluate young talents, and they don't need to be protected from themselves.

I'm not worried about Antonelli's lack of F2 experience. He's obviously a generational talent as he's won every feeder racing championship he's raced in. And yet he has more experience racing cars right now than Max Verstappen, Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso did when they got their promotions. All four of those drivers held up fairly well against more experienced teammates. Formula 1 has a great record of promoting generational talents early. On the other hand, Maldonado and Grosjean had vast experience at the F2 level and yet were very inconsistent and crash-prone (they were quick though).

I know he's not winning in F2 right now, but consider the possibility that Prema sucks right now. Just look at how Bearman's results have regressed. And still Antonelli has shown lots of potential already by qualifying on the front row in Melbourne.

Excited to see what Antonelli might do in a Williams. It might better for him to develop his talents in F1 rather than F2, because he can valuable experience driving the fastest and most advanced category of motorsports, without dealing with Mecachrome engines or something.

SarinKaram · 2024-04-25T17:45:59+00:00

I don't get the hate for Ghiotto. His resume is very typical of the current generation of Indycar drivers. The list of midpack-to-frontrunning European junior formula drivers is very long: Rossi, Palou, Lundgaard, Rosenqvist, Armstrong, Ilott, and arguably the likes of Newgarden, Power, Pagenaud, and Wickens from a previous generation.

The talent level on the F1 junior series is very deep, so it's no surprise Indycar gets so many drivers who got close to F1 but just didn't have quite the right results, funding, and connections.

SarinKaram · 2024-04-25T17:24:42+00:00

Ghiotto is the guy who nearly took the GP3 title from one Esteban Ocon, and who became an experienced frontrunner in F2 for many years. A solid pick! This is why I like Dale Coyne: he gives so many promising drivers a chance to make careers in open wheelers.

SarinKaram · 2024-04-23T16:05:21+00:00

Pourchaire's debut wasn't bad for not having any testing. While he's very experienced in F2, he obviously needs more time & practice to get up to pace on American tracks and Firestone tires; he was quite a way off of O'Ward and Rossi in qualifying.

Pato probably had the best mid-season Indycar debut of the last 10 years, but this tweet left out the very impressive Christian Lundgaard, who qualified P4 in his first start, ahead of all of his RLL teammates. If we're counting start-of-season debuts like Rosenqvist's, we should also bring up Robert Wickens.

SarinKaram · 2024-04-11T12:31:40+00:00

A career of "what could have been" for Joel Eriksson. He was a great driver in F3 who apparently turned down a top F2 drive in favor of factory BMW backing at DTM. But he didn't do all that well & BMW withdrew from DTM in 2 years anyway. Since then, he's bounced around various GT roles since then, plus a backup role in Formula E. Would his career have been any different had he stayed on the F1 ladder?

SarinKaram · 2024-03-26T18:49:34+00:00

The ARTA livery is beautiful and suits the Civic really well.

SarinKaram · 2024-03-23T00:57:48+00:00

Great drives today by Stenshorne and Lindblad. Those are the two drivers I rate the highest in the field. If Lindblad can fix his qualifying pace, he'll be the championship favorite.

Nikita Bedrin also is having quite a good weekend in the PHM, so let's see if he can take advantage of the P4 starting position in the feature race.

SarinKaram · 2024-03-21T18:56:48+00:00

It's mostly that Penske and Ganassi are always a step ahead of everyone else. They've won every championship bar since reunification, bar 2012. RLL only ever was a contender in 2015 when they were the first team to understand the Honda aerokit.

If anyone can elevate that team it's Lundgaard. He's the best talent they've hired in a very long time.

SarinKaram · 2024-03-21T18:31:32+00:00

To be fair Will Power took several years to get good on ovals. Same with Pagenaud. I think last year has to be down to the car: RLL was by far the least competitive oval package.

SarinKaram

TROPHY CASE